Cooking Tricks: How to Cook Dried Legumes Correctly

Legumes they are the seeds of a type of plant that we call legumes. Among these plants we can find chickpeas, lentils, beans, or peas among others. A food that it has a lot of protein And also if you prepare it with love and dedication, you can get more than great.
Eating legumes is a good option. They provide only about 80 calories per 100 grams already cookedHave very little fat and a lot of iron, and they contain B vitamins and a lot of fiber which makes our intestinal transit go much better.

If we have the dried legumes, for better conservation, the we will keep in airtight or closed containers that make them retain all their properties and have an optimal quality. Always leaving them in a cool and dry place.

How should you cook your legumes to make them perfect?

• The first thing you have to do is prepare them by soaking them so that they soften the day before cooking. In this way they will be much more tender when it comes to taking them. When we cook them we can serve them pureed in the oven or simply cooked, they are delicious anyway.
• So that they are as tender and juicy as possible, try to soak it in cold water and as I have told you, leave them the day before to soak. In all legumes we will use cold water less in chickpeas to be soaked in lukewarm water and a tablespoon of salt to make them softer.
• When cooking, we will always put all the legumes in cold water, except again with the chickpeas, that you always have to put them when the water is boiling. Do not trigger the cooking, make it over low heat so that they are perfect.
• When preparing them for cooking, the best thing is accompany your legumes with vegetables such as onion, garlic, bay leaf or aromatic herbs such as thyme, rosemary or some peppercorns, to enhance its flavor. Once they are boiling, we can remove these ingredients, since the legume will have been soaked in this flavor.
• If you add meat to legumesYou have to add all the ingredients at the same time, so that in this way, they all cook at the same time. The meat, ham, chicken or bacon will be put at the beginning, and the blood sausage, potatoes or chorizo, being more delicate, will be put at the end of cooking.
• If you notice that you have come up short in water, and when you are cooking the legumes you need to add a little more, remember that it must be cold except in the case of chickpeas.
• El cooking time will vary greatly depending on the type of water and the type of legume. The average is around 2 hours in the traditional pot and between 15 and 30 minutes in the pressure cooker. But there is no better way to know if they are ready, than by testing them.
• La salt you should always add it at the end of cooking, in order to rectify if necessary.

Now you no longer have excuses to make perfect legumes.

En Recetin: Cooking Tricks: How To Keep Food Hot For Longer